Tag Archives: Westchester Luxury Homes

The 7 Steps to Buying a Home | Bedford NY Real Estate

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You’ve finally found the home you love. Now what? Though every market is different, you can expect to follow these seven steps, from offer to closing.

1. Making an offer

If you’re sure the home you love is right for you, it’s time to make your move. This means writing up a formal purchase offer and signing a real estate contract.

Even though it’s early in the buying process, you still must sign a legally binding contract. With your signature, you’re committing to moving ahead with the seller. Keep in mind you can add contingencies to many real estate contracts. For example, most real estate buying offers will be contingent on a property inspection, as well as disclosure review, loan approval, appraisal and other matters. Such contingencies enable buyers to opt out of the contract if unexpected problems or concerns pop up.

2. Disclosures

In most states, sellers are legally required to provide buyers with disclosure documents, a preliminary title report, copies of city reports and any specific local documents. In California, for example, an earthquake hazards report or a geological survey is required as part of the disclosures. In some areas of the South, especially near the Gulf Coast, buyers usually receive flood maps and reports relevant to the property being considered.

In addition, sellers must disclose any known issues that might affect the property’s value or habitability. Usually, in a transfer disclosure statement, sellers must answer a series of “yes” or “no” questions about the property, the neighborhood and their experience there. If there have been leaky windows, violations from the city, work done without permits or plans for a major nearby development, the seller must disclose them. If there are significant issues, the seller’s agent would likely have brought them up before the contract signing. But if something is disclosed here that is a negative factor for you, it is your “out” of the contract.

3. The appraisal

Most buyers put a certain amount of money down toward the purchase price. The balance will come in the form of a bank loan (usually). But a bank isn’t going to hand over that money without due diligence. An appraisal is the financial institution’s way of making sure the contract price is the right price. So the lender sends out a third-party appraiser, which the buyer pays for, to confirm that the contract price is in line with the neighborhood’s comparable sales. If it’s not, the bank can deny the loan or change the terms.

 

 

http://www.zillow.com/blog/2013-12-26/the-7-steps-to-buying-a-home/

Come Have a Good Look at 2013’s Best Designer Dwellings | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

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1item1.rendition.slideshowWideVertical.timothy-corrigan-02-grand-salon-chateau-du-grand-luce.jpgPhoto by Eric Piasecki/Architectural Digest

This year shelter magazines tilled their terrain with many many a designer home—and why wouldn’t they? Parading the over-the-top digs of aesthetes whose entire lives drip with the glamour and point of view that made them gazillionaires is fascinating. More to the point, as much as any human’s habitat reflects his or her personal style, designers use their home to cloy the senses with their signature ballsiness—be it Ralph Lauren’s red, white, and blue tartan, Jonathan Adler’s pillows embroidered with with 1960s bouffant hairdos, or Orla Kiely’s groovy, ’70s inspired prints. These highlights (and so much more) below.

Photos by Roger Davies/Architectural Digest↑ Waldo Fernandez in Beverly Hills. Fernandez, a prolific Cuban-born interior designer, not only boasts Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Aniston, Sean Connery, and the Pitt-Jolie clan as clients, but also a SoCal a midcentury spread lacquered to a high shine and laced with contemporary art. After replacing the pool and adding a second-story bedroom suite, Fernandez called upon what Arch Digest calls his “perfectionist disposition” for the interiors, bringing in wenge-wood flooring, large doors “finished in exactly 17 coats of deep brown–black lacquer,” and a collection of carefully curated art and furniture. “I’m obsessed with keeping the house fresh,” he told AD. [link]

Photos by William Waldron/Architectural Digest↑ Jamie Drake in NYC. After spending years waiting for his two-bedroom unit in NYC’s Annabelle Selldorf-designed 200 Eleventh Avenue condo building to be finished—”it taunts me,” he said about the work-in-process in ’09—Drake, a big-name famed for his use of high-octane color, finally settled into his 3,000-square-foot apartment last year. Unsurprisingly, he took little time to swath it in the go-to garb—punches of bright hues, assertive art—that’s ensnared clients like Madonna and (outgoing) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The home is also stuffed with pieces Drake designed, including the living room’s marble-and-granite table and his bed and headboard. [link]

↑ Howard Slatkin in NYC. In October, interior designer Howard Slatkin, who’s made a living off a layered more-is-more approach to florals, chintz, gilding, tassels, and chair skirts, released a monster tome all about a single 6,000-square-foot New York City apartment: his. Frustrated by the penchant of shelter magazines to breeze over the private, and possibly the most interesting, areas of a home—the pantries, the linen closets, the crowded, computer-topped desks—Slatkin opened up every cranny of his pad: the elevator vestibule, the back hall, the laundry area, and, duh, the “flower room” and “candle room.” For any other apartment, an editorial dive this deep would be silly, but for an apartment overflowing with ivory objets, curtains made of “17th-century Portuguese polychrome embroidered bedcovers,” French Chantilly plates, and—oh my—mahogany doors “embellished with Japanese lacquer panels inset in gild-wood frames, which are bordered with patinated mirrors,” 240 pages is really the only way to go. [link]

Priciest home sales in 2013 eclipsed by the previous year | Bedford Hills NY Homes

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When it comes to the priciest residential sales of the year, it seems that 2013 isn’t quite up to snuff, at least compared to 2012.

For example, the city’s top townhouse sale this past year, a $34.35 million deal at 21 Beekman Place, was lower than the $42 million sale of 973 Fifth Avenue — the priciest townhouse to sell 2012. The trade of a unit at 720 Park Avenue snagged the most expensive co-op sale for this year, but its $24 million price tag fell flat after the record-setting $54 million sale of Denise Rich’s 785 Fifth Avenue co-op in 2012. Indeed, none of the residential sales came close to the $88 million deal for Sandy Weill’s 15 Central Park West penthouse the year before, the New York Observer reported.

Of course, the Observer’s ranking did not take into account contracts signed at numerous swanky condo properties, including the two apartments that went for more than $90 million at Extell Development’s One57, nor the deals signed at 56 Leonard and Walker Tower for $47 million and more than $50 million, respectively.

The year’s priciest listings have idled, with the Pierre’s $125 million triplex penthouse at 795 Fifth Avenue and River Club’s massive $130 million planned mansion — the city’s most expensive listing — sitting on the market with, so far, no bites. [NYO]

 

 

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/12/23/priciest-home-sales-in-2013-eclipsed-by-the-previous-year/

NYC agent count surges in 2013, especially in Brooklyn | Cross River NY Real Estate

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It’s been an active year (to say the least) for New York City real estate, so it should come as no shock that the number of real estate agents and brokers licensed in the five boroughs has increased.

The rise was concentrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In Manhattan, headlines about mega-luxury apartments and reality shows about high-flying brokers who sling them prompted many to get into the business, while in Kings County the continuing tide of gentrification (and its attendant rising rents) may have brought on the nearly 10 percent increase in licensed agents.

The number of licensed real estate salespeople in New York City grew by 7.2 percent, to 29,503 from 27,530 since last year at this time, data from the New York State Department of State provided to The Real Deal show.

In Manhattan alone, the number was 15,798, up 7.4 percent from 14,708 last December. In Brooklyn, the ranks of salespeople burgeoned 9.2 percent, to 5,210 from 4,772, the data show.

In the Bronx, there were 54 new agents licensed with the state this year, bringing the total in the borough to 1200; in Queens the ranks of salespeople swelled 6.3 percent – to 5,887 from 5,538. Meanwhile, on Staten Island, the 1366 agents added less than 50 new licensees to their ranks, to reach a total of 1408 salespeople in Richmond County.

The volume of licensed brokers citywide ticked up slightly as well, to 23,690 from 23,134 last year –an increase of 2.4 percent. (Agents are typically greener salespeople, while licensed brokers must have at least two years of industry experience and pass a licensing test to earn the designation.)

While the DOS figures do not distinguish residential from commercial brokers, anecdotal evidence suggests that the bulk of agents are in the residential sector. And while commercial leasing had an up and down year and may have even shed brokers, the commercial sales industry thrived, said David Behin, head of investment sales at commercial and residential brokerage MNS.

 

 

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/12/23/nyc-agent-count-surges-in-2013-especially-in-brooklyn/

Inside A-Rod’s Pristine Beach Condo, On The Market For $3.2M | North Salem NY Real Estate

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22 images

Alex Rodriguez’s pro baseball career may be in one hot mess, but his Miami housing situation isn’t exactly clear and simple either. After selling his minimalist, palatial North Bayshore Drive manse for a grand $30 mill, and buying an oceanfront condo at Midbeach’s Mei building for less than a tenth of that price, A-Rod has popped the crash pad back on the market for $3.2 million, just over a million more than what he paid for it. Chump change one would think for a guy used to the big, eight figure, leagues. But hey, a million bucks is a million bucks. Curbed National has more details about the condo’s redone interior, which just like the house is basically a white box. Hey, the man likes lots of white.

Exploring Fisher Island’s Historic, Restored Vanderbilt Mansion | Chappaqua NY Homes

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46 images

[Photos by Silvia Ros]

Last Thursday, the historic Vanderbilt Mansion on Fisher Island, heart of the Fisher Island Club, emerged from an extensive restoration, part of a $60 million upgrade of the hotel and club facilities, for a gala theme party like a grand, old dowager queen, pristine and glowing. The house was originally designed by Maurice Fatio for Rosamond and William K. Vanderbilt II, who famously traded Miami Beach developer Carl Fisher a yacht for seven acres of the island. The restoration is by Richard Heisenbottle, with interiors by Hirsch Bedner & Associates. Curbed photographer Silvia Ros checked out the restored mansion and grounds.

On that original seven acres, later extended to 13, Vanderbilt commissioned Fatio to design a somewhat small, but magnificent house, replete with many outbuildings including a cottage for his stepdaughter Rosemary and a large boat slip for his other yacht, the 264 foot long Alva, probably named after his mother, Alva. Vanderbilt would then name his Fisher Island estate Alva Base. Two more cottages were for the servants, a larger building housed the crew for the yacht, and finally there was an airplane hangar. The cottages now make up hotel rooms and suites, and the hangar is now the spa. · Fisher Island coverage [Curbed Miami] · Historic Vanderbilt Mansion gets a new life on ultra-private Fisher Island [Miami Herald

Canadian home sales remain flat | North Salem NY Homes

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Canadian home sales remained mostly flat in November compared to October, but were up 5.9 percent from a year ago, The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reported.

“National sales activity in November stood 3.4 percent below the peak reached in September, providing further evidence that activity in the later summer and early fall was likely boosted by homebuyers with preapproved mortgages at lower-than-current interest rates jumping into the market before their preapprovals expired,” the trade group said in a statement.

The number of newly listed homes also increased 1.8 percent month over month in November, representing a supply of homes that would take six months to sell, the same level as the previous month.

Meanwhile, the MLS Home Price Index (HPI) edged up 0.3 percent month over month in November, and was up 4.1 percent year over year.

Source: CREA

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/canadian-home-sales-remain-flat/?utm_source=20131216&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinespm#sthash.tQ6rFuU7.dpuf

Renovation Do No. 2: Revamp your bathroom | Bedford Corners NY Homes

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A toilet that looks old, cracked or dirty (or doesn’t flush properly) is a turn-off, and the same goes for a vanity, which should be eye-catching and practical. “Install a vanity that recesses into the wall, so it saves space,” advises Alen Moshkovich, a broker for Douglas Elliman in New York City.

Proper lighting can also be a great value booster, such as adding a window in the bathroom, so natural light can illuminate the space.

And homeowners tend to overlook one other simple fix: Reglazing a tub, rather than getting a new one, will save you money and upgrade the look of your bathroom.

http://money.msn.com/home-loans/good-and-bad-renovations-for-your-homes-value